South Africa is beginning to turn the corner in resolving the energy crisis, said electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, who was briefing the media on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan in Pretoria on Monday.

Improved performance of Eskom’s generating fleet meant the suspension of load shedding over the past weekend and much lower stages of the planned power outages during the week.

“We have turned the corner, although we are not out of the woods yet. We are beginning to show sustained improved performance over an extended period of time and this is good news in that it’s an affirmation and validation of the work that the team is doing at Eskom,” he said.

Ramokgopa said the intensification of maintenance plans at Eskom are beginning to have a positive impact despite a difficult period in September when load shedding was intensified as a result of maintenance outages.

“These plans that have been put into motion are beginning to bear fruit. I did indicate some time ago when we were experiencing heightened levels of load shedding stage 6 that essentially what we are dealing with is short-term pain that is going to result in long-term gain; we are beginning to see the kinds of gains that I was referring to. Our actions are deliberate. We are going to invest a lot of our efforts to ensure that we are able to maintain the units.”

There is, however, no place for complacency, the minister said. “It’s important that we shouldn’t be complacent and we have never been complacent … even when are beginning to see … green shoots. I think what that does is just bolster and raise the morale of the team to ensure that we even achieved greater results and we are able to save the South African economy.

Interventions

“We introduced these interventions when we came into office, after the president appointed and sat with the team and thought the best way of getting out of this situation is to ensure that we make these investments into these units. What are the results – when the units come back, they remain on load for the longest period of hours.

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“Essentially, we have undermined the rate and frequency of failure of these units. We have improved on their efficiency. They are beginning to produce … closer to their design capacity. This is not by accident. It’s not some intervention that comes from a place that is unknown. It is simple engineering, and we really want to commend the team,” he said.